Calories Intake

RachelKoerner6158

I have been on a weightloss trend. MyFitnessPal recommended 1200 calories per day based on my current weight and goals. I do burn calories by exercising and walking. Should I be maintaining the 1200 calories regardless of what I burn or should I be consuming the calories I burn as well?

1BlueAurora

The answer to your question is: Add the exercise calories to your base 1200. So if you jog for 30 minutes and you burn 200 calories (or whatever), you add 1200 plus 200; you're daily goal for calorie intake now is 1400 calories. You'll still lose weight eating this additional amount.

mtaratoot

The goal from MFP is excluding any intentional exercise, like going for a walk. You can log your walking exercise in your MFP diary, and it will adjust the calories for you. Be sure to keep your weight updated in MFP because as you lose weight, it takes fewer calories to move you.

I suggest you also keep track of both how close you get to your goal (don't aim to go under your goal - aim to hit it because it already is set so that you will lose weight at the rate you told MFP you wanted to lose at) as well as your weight trend over time. After a month or so, if your results match the expectations, your goal is right, at least for now. Note above that your goal may change as you lose weight. If your results don't match, tweak your goal.

That said, you wont' see a lower goal from MFP as you lose weight. It won't recommend less than 1200 calories per day, and that's a good thing. Depending on your current weight and how fast you're trying to lose (hint - make sure not to go too fast), you might feel hungry and frustrated. If that happens, consider asking MFP to revise your goal with a slower loss rate. For certain as you get closer to your goal - maybe only 20-30 pounds to lose, you should slow down to a half pound per week.

I wish you success! You can achieve it if you STICK TO IT!

jjjsroach

I chose to stick with the 1200 base calorie recommendation and ignore the "burned" exercise calories. Those calories are extra bonus weight loss. Controlling diet is the key to weight loss. The exercise is good for you and makes you feel better, but I, personally, am not bought into adding them back. Those burned calories make up for mistakes I make logging my food. Best of luck!

yirara

jjjsroach wrote: »

I chose to stick with the 1200 base calorie recommendation and ignore the "burned" exercise calories. Those calories are extra bonus weight loss. Controlling diet is the key to weight loss. The exercise is good for you and makes you feel better, but I, personally, am not bought into adding them back. Those burned calories make up for mistakes I make logging my food. Best of luck!

You might do that, but it's not how MFP works. TO has not mentioned how much they exercise, but if it's just for 200 calories then they're effectively only eating 1000 calories per day, which is a lot less than a child needs. Weightloss is not about losing as quickly as possible, but as sustainable as possible. And eating too little (and 1200 is already very little) will eventually lead to binging and giving up, or losing lots of muscle mass, hair, looking haggard. Basically lots of things you don't want.

mtaratoot

@jjjsroach

If you set your goal to achieve a reasonable amount of weight loss, it includes a safe deficit. Not eating back the extra calories you burn with intentional exercise is the same as setting an unhealthy weight loss rate and deficit. It's the same result.

When you undereat, your body has to get fuel from somewhere. If you are running a safe deficit, you primarily are burning stored fat. That's the goal for weight loss - fat loss. There will always be some muscle loss, too. If you are running to large a deficit, your body will cannibalize itself. You can have significant muscle loss. Your heart is a muscle, and being malnourished can lead to heart failure if it gets bad enough. Before that happens, you can get brittle nails, have your hair fall out, and feel dizzy. It is important to eat enough fuel.

If your intentional exercise is walking a quarter mile, I agree you can probably ignore it. If it's substantial enough to burn many calories, that's a big deal. You can use your own data over time to figure out what works best for you.

It will serve you well to improve your logging if it's haphazard and you make a lot of errors.

The most effective way to lose fat and keep it off is take the slow and steady approach. It's a good way to develop habits to keep the weight off long-term, and that should also be a goal. Repeatedly gaining and losing weight is also unhealthy. When you lose weight, you lose fat and muscle. When you gain weight without enough strength training, you gain back fat. When you get back to the same weight you were "last time," you now have less muscle and more fat. If you repeat this cycle, it can leave you with little muscle. Building muscle is hard.

jjjsroach

Thanks for the all the feedback on my comment. I agree with most of it. The point I was trying to make is that no matter how good we think we are at logging our food and our exercise, we are not nailing it every day. Especially for those of us who travel and have to eat out. Who knows if that broccoli was soaking in butter before it was put on my plate. We all also know the exercise calories are notoriously all over the place and many estimates are grossly inaccurate. My recommendation was keep it simple. Set your calorie goal, log the best you can, and keep it level. I think too many people fail because they reward themselves by eating back those exercise calories (that may not have been accurate) and then fail to log something that they didn't know about. They then step on the scale at week's end after doing "everything by the book" and they gain a pound. Then they give up. The bottom line is that if you are not losing weight over a 4 week period using this method, you are not achieving the calorie deficit you are logging. So make sure you have enough buffer in your planned deficit to account for all the inaccuracies that are in our current best methodology. If you are losing 1-2 pounds per week...its working! If you are losing more or less than that, adjust your calorie goal.

mtaratoot

@jjjsroach

I am going to have to disagree with some of this.

jjjsroach wrote: »

...no matter how good we think we are at logging our food and our exercise, we are not nailing it every day. Especially for those of us who travel and have to eat out. Who knows if that broccoli was soaking in butter before it was put on my plate.

If you eat out, you can assume your food may have more oil that what you cook at home. If you can order steamed broccoli, you can tell if it's greasy. Well, I can. If I eat out, I have to estimate anyway. That creates a whole other set of issues. It can be done, it's just got more noise.

We all also know the exercise calories are notoriously all over the place and many estimates are grossly inaccurate.

All over the map? No. They can be dubious; I'll agree with that. My Garmin device does a very good job of tracking what I burn. I can say this because I log completely and honestly, and I follow the results over time. By comparing my expected change in weight to my actual change in weight, I can decide if I need a correction. There are ways to do this using logic and math to provide an "intake adjustment," and you can even add it to your diary.

I think too many people fail because they reward themselves by eating back those exercise calories (that may not have been accurate) and then fail to log something that they didn't know about.

If the exercise calories actually ARE accurate, then eating them back makes sense whether you are in a deficit to lose fat or eating at maintenance to stay the same. If you fail to log something, then the system has an error. You have to log completely and honestly. If you eat a LOT of foods that other people cook and you have no idea what's in them, there's no way to log accurately OR completely. If you can log accurately and completely and honestly, it does work. There are lots of people who have been here for years who can attest to this.

They then step on the scale at week's end after doing "everything by the book" and they gain a pound. Then they give up.

I'm a big proponent of weight daily, ignoring the number, and looking at a moving average. You get lots of data that way. A one pound difference in a week may or may not be noise. You have to look at this over time - months. You can use the feedback from the scale to adjust your calorie goal. Giving up is the one sure way to fail. You have to stick to it for it to work. If people quit, then they may or may not go back to old ways. Don't quit. Stick to it.

The bottom line is that if you are not losing weight over a 4 week period using this method, you are not achieving the calorie deficit you are logging.

We agree on this. If your results don't match your expectations, you need to change your goal. Having good data from logging honestly, accurately, and completely (including exercise) can give you valuable data so as you go forward you can fine tune how things work for YOUR body. You still have to stick to it. Revising goals has to happen anyway because as you lose fat, you weigh less, and it takes less energy to move you around.

[/quote]So make sure you have enough buffer in your planned deficit to account for all the inaccuracies that are in our current best methodology. If you are losing 1-2 pounds per week...its working! If you are losing more or less than that, adjust your calorie goal.[/quote]

No. You don't need a buffer. You need to set a good goal to lose fat at a reasonable rate, and two pounds a week is not reasonable for most people. Yes, you should adjust your goal if your results don't match your expectations. If you don't have good goals, you won't get the results you thought. If you don't log accurately, honestly, and completely, you have no idea whether you need an adjustment or not. If you always do the exact same exercise every day at the same intensity then you don't need to use NEAT and add exercise calories - you can go to a tool and set a TDEE and just eat to that level every day. It will include exercise calories. You still should try to hit that target as close as possible on average over the course of several days or a week.

We agree on a few things but not everything.

I wish you well on your journey. I hope you find wisdom along the way, set good goals, work towards them, and succeed.

AnnPT77

jjjsroach wrote: »

Thanks for the all the feedback on my comment. I agree with most of it. The point I was trying to make is that no matter how good we think we are at logging our food and our exercise, we are not nailing it every day. Especially for those of us who travel and have to eat out. Who knows if that broccoli was soaking in butter before it was put on my plate. We all also know the exercise calories are notoriously all over the place and many estimates are grossly inaccurate. My recommendation was keep it simple. Set your calorie goal, log the best you can, and keep it level. I think too many people fail because they reward themselves by eating back those exercise calories (that may not have been accurate) and then fail to log something that they didn't know about. They then step on the scale at week's end after doing "everything by the book" and they gain a pound. Then they give up. The bottom line is that if you are not losing weight over a 4 week period using this method, you are not achieving the calorie deficit you are logging. So make sure you have enough buffer in your planned deficit to account for all the inaccuracies that are in our current best methodology. If you are losing 1-2 pounds per week...its working! If you are losing more or less than that, adjust your calorie goal.

So because our estimates risk being inaccurate, we should make them even less accurate, erring on the side of undercounting net calories because we're afraid of overcounting them?

Instead, I'd advocate making them as accurate as practical (without spiraling into obsession) then tracking consistently for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles for those who have them). At that point, we have enough experiential data (weight change and calorie intake) to adjust our calorie goal based on results. I don't see how injecting "buffers" into that process makes it more reliable.

Yes, there will be estimating errors. Over the course of 4-6 weeks, the overs and unders will tend to average out to some consistent pattern . . . perhaps not precisely accurate, but workable.

If someone wants to eat a consistent calorie level every day, IMO they'd be better off using a TDEE calculator and averaging their planned exercise into their base calorie goal. (Best actually do the planned exercise then, though!)

One pattern we see here is people who lose weight, maintain for a while with a certain activity pattern, then something happens to disrupt their activity schedule: Personal life circumstances, work schedule, sadly sometimes illness or injury, and they start to regain.

One thing I personally like about the MFP approach of adding/eating back exercise separately is that it's given me at least a general feel for how many calories I need either with my normal exercise, without it, or with a reduced/alternate routine. That's helped me maintain through periods of surgical recovery, injury or the like that have popped up over almost 8 years now in maintenance.

I'm not going to say that my approach is best for everyone: Some will be better served by the TDEE method, and if using buffers is reassuring to you and works for you, I support you in doing that. I can't quite urge it on others, though: If they understand the underlying issues, they can decide for themselves.

jessydny

Hi, I'm new to MFP and tracking calories. If I'm understanding correctly, if my daily calorie goal is 1200 and exercise log 100 calories burned, then the goal for that day adjusts to 1300?
Also can someone give me a little more info about TDEE?

mtaratoot

jessydny wrote: »

Hi, I'm new to MFP and tracking calories. If I'm understanding correctly, if my daily calorie goal is 1200 and exercise log 100 calories burned, then the goal for that day adjusts to 1300?
Also can someone give me a little more info about TDEE?

You are understanding correctly!

Try it for a month or two. Be sure to log completely, accurately, and honestly - both intake and exercise. Track your results. If the results match what you expected, you've got things set correctly for now. If results don't meet expectations, tweak the goal. Then as you lose weight, you actually will have to change the goal since it takes less energy for your daily activities since there's less of you to move around.

AnnPT77

jessydny wrote: »

Hi, I'm new to MFP and tracking calories. If I'm understanding correctly, if my daily calorie goal is 1200 and exercise log 100 calories burned, then the goal for that day adjusts to 1300?
Also can someone give me a little more info about TDEE?

There are two ways of estimating calorie needs:

(1) The MFP way, where calorie needs for pre-exercise lifestyle are estimated, and some calories are subtracted to create a calorie goal that's anticipated to trigger weight loss. Then intentional exercise is logged when it happens, and those calories are also eaten. That keeps the same deficit, assuming all the estimates are accurate. This does teach the useful lesson that when we're active, we need more calories than when we're inactive. But it does mean we need to estimate exercise calories, which some people think is ever so much more likely to be inaccurate than base calorie estimates.

(2) The TDEE method, which average in planned exercise in addition to pre-exercise lifestyle. Some calories are then subtracted from the estimated TDEE to create a weight-loss calorie goal. The person would eat the same number of calories each day, whether an exercise day or not. This does mean that a person better do the planned exercise, or the deficit may not actually be present.

There are many TDEE calculators online. I like this one best (more activity levels, with better descriptions; lets you compare different research-based estimating algorithms; shows all the math):

https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Some relevant background:

TDEE is total daily energy expenditure, the total number of calories we burn all day, from every source. Some of the sources are . . .

BMR, basal metabolic rate, the number of calories we burn flat in bed, not even digesting food or anything, just being alive. RMR, resting metabolic rate, is similar but different, includes some normal physiological stuff not in BMR. Numbers are close. BMR/RMR can differ between individuals**, even though people of the same relevant demographics will be given the same estimate. BMR/RMR for average people is the biggest source of calorie burn.

** Good article here about metabolic differences between individuals: https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis, the number of calories we burn doing daily life stuff, like our job, home chores, non-exercise hobbies. For average people, NEAT is the second-biggest source of calorie burn.

EAT, exercise activity thermogenesis, the calories we burn doing intentional exercise. (There are other names for this concept, too.)

TEF, thermic effect of food. This is the number of calories it takes to digest/metabolize the food we eat. Some foods require more calories to be digested than others. While these tend not to be big numbers in practice (maybe 10% of calories for an average person), they can be more meaningful than some people assume.

Generally, the MFP method and the TDEE method start estimating thing same way.
* They use a research-based formula to estimate BMR using age, weight, height.
* They use an "activity multiplier" to add calories based on activity level setting. (You can see the multipliers explicitly in the calculator I linked above. MFP has different multipliers, but similar concept.) Anyone who picks the same activity level setting gets the same multiplier.

The main difference is that MFP's activity level settings are intended to reflect pre-exercise activity (NEAT), and the TDEE method's activity level settings are intended to reflect all activity including exercise (NEAT + EAT). Both estimates implicitly assume a standard TEF.

All of it is estimates. It's not mysterious, it's not a magical black box that produces Truth. A person should pick a method, and follow the practices that line up with that method, IMO. Following the estimate for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles for those who have them) yields enough experiential data to assess whether an individual is close to average (fits the estimates) or not (should change their calorie goal to a personally useful one).

PAV8888

AnnPT77 wrote: »

BMR, basal metabolic rate, the number of calories we burn flat in bed, not even digesting food or anything, just being alive. RMR, resting metabolic rate, is similar but different, includes some normal physiological stuff not in BMR. Numbers are close.

For the sake of general interest I note that MFP and Fitbit both seem to use the Mifflin St Jeor RMR equation and Sailrabbit offers it as one of their main options.

There have been a few studies that have found it to more closely estimate measured resting energy expenditure as compared to other formulas. And it seems to do even better as compared to the rest when it comes to more obese indivdiuals.

BUT, doing good or better, i.e. yielding a closer estimate to measured RMR as compared to other formulas, does not mean that it yields an accurate estimate for everyone or even for anyone!

It is just a nice big cloud of dots and where each of us falls in that cloud will only be inferred through consistent logging and subsequent review of our results. And that will not even take into account that our position in that cloud of uncertainty can change over time!

Which is where Ann's last sentence comes into play